New York Hardcore Band Sick Of It All Stick To Their Guns

For over 20 years, the quartet known as Sick Of It All - led by the Koller brothers from Queens, NY - have been exporting the circle-pit magic they discovered as teenagers during "hardcore matinees" at the historic, defunct punk rock mecca CBGBs.

Following the lead of defunct acts like Youth Of Today, Black Flag and Minor Threat - SOIA took the early 80s hardcore lud-fast-rules, mixed it with skinhead-friendly street punk and threw in enough chants to keep a hari krishna busy for weeks. With hardcore on the decline in the late 80s, SOIA held the flame high, becoming the token hardcore act on packaged metal tours and having rapper KRS One introduce their debut album, "Blood, Sweat And No Tears."

For the first half of the 1990s, fellow NYHC act Biohazard (aka the spinal tap of hardcore) outstripped SOIA in record sales, metal tours and MTV video play. But save for Biohazard's Evan Seinfeld singer/bassist appearing on VH-1 ultra-lame "Supergroup" reality show, and marrying/divorcing porn star Tera Patrick - no one has seen Biohazard's name outside of a cut-out bin in a decade.

To paraphrase Sick Of It All's ex-roadie Toby Morse from H2O - SOIA, like their ancestors the Ramones, stick to their guns and know their roots. It's why they are still able to headline 1000 seat clubs worldwide, and have outgrown the knucklehead segment of their audience who had a bad habit of starting riots at SOIA South Florida gigs in the mid-late 1990s. Thankfully, for those interested in attending Friday night's show at Revolution, most of those people are now too old to fight.

Furthermore, a fresh cut skinhead starting trouble at a Sick Of It All gig in 2010 would be like picking a fight at your parents' wedding anniversary party. Not a good look.